Does Having an Opinion Make You a Leader?

In this episode, Charles and Dan challenge the physical and psychological prescriptions found in chapters 10 and 11 of The Masculine in Relationship. The discussion begins with a critical look at the concept of embodiment, debating whether relationship friction is truly caused by overthinking or if it is the result of underthinking and reactivity in stressful moments.

The hosts take a skeptical stance on the author's suggested "protocols"—such as provocation meditation and breath of fire—questioning whether these techniques offer genuine resilience or if they are merely temporary Band-Aids that ignore the deep-seated psychological roots of anxiety.

The conversation then moves into the essential role of desire and leadership, where the hosts argue that a man's presence is most clearly felt through his opinions. They explore why simply having and stating a clear preference—even on something as mundane as dinner—is a fundamental expression of care that partners actually value.

Finally, Charles and Dan tackle the author’s controversial attempt to redefine selfishness as a virtue. They weigh the importance of maintaining personal agency and self-respect against the pitfalls of "willy-nilly" redefining language to suit a narrative, ultimately arguing for a centered approach to self-care that doesn't sacrifice linguistic or relational integrity.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 2:37 The Overthinking vs. Underthinking Debate
• 7:24 The Reality of Physical Protocols and Resilience
• 12:32 A Critical Look at Mindfulness and Provocative Meditation
• 17:14 Evaluating Breathwork: Ujjayi, Breath of Fire, and the Wim Hof Method
• 25:23 The Power of Personal Desire and Presence
• 26:40 Masculine Leadership through Clear Opinions
• 33:35 Communication Habits: Passive Defaults vs. Active Caring
• 37:41 The "Selfishness" Controversy and Linguistic Integrity

Transcript

Charles (00:00)
the heavy lifting that you do in therapy or in a recovery group or in a coaching session. That's where you're going to be able to address the fundamental stories and ideas that are telling you. You need to be anxious because you don't have the tools that you need to deal with the really tough stuff when it happens. And you know, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Go ahead and develop your meditation practice and your deep breathing exercises and that stuff as well. But you know,

If you've got a deep-seated anxiety that you're a little boy who isn't up for the challenges that you're going to face, learning three different methods of breath work is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Welcome to the Mindfully Masculine Podcast. This is Charles. In this episode, Dan and I review the Masculine in Relationship by G.S. Youngblood, focusing on his ideas about embodiment and clear desire.

We start by debating whether relationship problems are caused by overthinking or if they are actually the result of underthinking and reactivity in stressful moments. We take a skeptical look at the author's suggested physical hacks like provocation meditation and breath of fire, questioning if these techniques actually address the root of anxiety or just temporary band-aids. The conversation then shifts to the importance of leadership where we discuss how simply having and stating a clear opinion, even on something like dinner,

shows the presence and care that partners value. Finally, we challenge the author's attempt to redefine selfishness as a virtue, arguing that while meeting your own needs is important for self-respect, we shouldn't willy-nilly change the meaning of words to sell books. For all of our content, including audio and video episodes, visit mindfullymasculine.com. Thanks and enjoy.

Dan (01:48)
Good evening.

Charles (01:50)
Good evening, Dan. Look at us, recording at 530. Which is ⁓ It's almost pitch black outside. Let's get into our book. We're continuing with The Masculine in Relationship by G.S. Youngblood. Chapter 10 is ⁓ I've been enjoying this book very much so far. And then with Chapter 10, that changed a little bit because of the kind of stuff that he got into and the kind of claims that he's making. Some of it I thought was great, some of it just...

Dan (01:54)
Yeah, I'm into it.

Charles (02:19)
rubs me the wrong way as a lot of, a lot of authors in the manuscript. Tend to do. And so we'll, we'll I'll bring those up in bitching complaint as I do and you'll temper my bitching complaint.

Dan (02:35)
I'm not making any guarantees of that. I'll let you I'm gonna let you do I'm gonna let you run

Charles (02:37)
Run! Okay,

so let's start with it. One thing, he starts off with what I believe to be a bit of a contradiction, which is to say that he has already established that he believes a lot of the unmasculine behavior that men kind of put into their relationship is a result of anxiety, which I agree with. And he also says that that

anxiety is the result of being too reactive instead of responsive. But then in this chapter, he kind of puts forward the hypothesis that, alright, the problem with your relationship is that you're overthinking and you're not... you're too much in your head and not in your body. But to me it seems like being reactive is a result of not thinking before you speak or thinking before you act.

Dan (03:23)
Mm-hmm.

Charles (03:34)
Being too reactive instead of responsive, feel like is a result of not enough thinking and not overthinking.

Dan (03:42)
Yeah, it's a fine line to think, but I think for me, the way I define that, to get you off of it, but basically it's it's just being clear, but being in an emote, being in a state where you can, we can think clearly because I think a lot of us, and I know I speak for myself, especially is when, you know, I'm tired, I'm hungry, I'm stressed, all those, those things that are my body are taking over and it makes thinking

Clearly difficult. Can I think? Yeah, but it's going to be swayed based on whatever I'm feeling in my body.

Charles (04:19)
Okay, I think I agree with you. I was-

Dan (04:22)
And

then, then just sorry, and then, and then the other thing is if I am thinking clearly, this is where if I think too much, I keep going and going and going. Eventually I start to build up some sort of stress, like by, by the more thinking I do, then that comes back down into my body. And now I'm feeling stressed because of the overthinking.

Charles (04:40)
Okay, think, yeah, I would say, yeah, clear thinking is certainly important. I would say that clear thinking equals balanced thinking, where I think most of the trouble I get myself into in relationships would be the result of unbalanced thinking, meaning that I am either under-thinking or over-thinking. I'm not thinking the right amount.

Dan (05:06)
It's Goldilocks Syndrome, is that-

Charles (05:07)
Exactly.

Yes. Yeah. I would say that that's true. to say that, you know, you're going to fix your relationship problems by getting out of your head and getting into your body. It's like, no, think, cause I, I also kind of relate being in your body to back brain versus front brain. You know, are you thinking with your brain step? you thinking with your frontal lobe? And I do feel like.

Like, he didn't do a good enough job to make that clear that, okay, well, you can't just boil it down to overthinking's the enemy, because I think underthinking is the enemy too. And that, you know, like we've talked about, when things start to heat up in a moment of conflict and your pulse goes over a hundred, then... Yeah. Your problem, the problems that result from that are not because you're being too cognitive. Yeah. They're because you're not being cognitive enough, right? Right. They're because you're...

the things that he says, you know, that, ⁓ your, when you're lost in your head, you are not going to be in communication with your instincts. And it's like, no, your, your instincts can be the problem too. And so anyway, he goes into the rest of this chapter talking about, well here's how you get out of your head and back into your body. And you know, ultimately I don't believe that there is any meditation technique.

or breath work or exercise that is going to cure the root of your anxiety. These are ways for you to deal with your anxiety in the moment. But if I had to allocate my time and effort in the ways that I thought would bring the most value to, again,

Going along with his premise that anxiety is the cause of unmasculine behavior and unmasculine behavior is the cause of most of the relationship trouble you'll experience with a woman. I would say spend your time getting to the root of your anxiety and fix that and less time listening to Wim Hof's new book about cold plunges and breath work.

Dan (07:23)
Yeah.

Charles (07:24)
And ultimately I think, okay, well, where does that anxiety come from? think the root of my anxiety when I experience it is a feeling of, know, something could happen that I am not fill in the blank enough to be able to deal with. I'm not smart enough. I'm not manly enough. I'm not quick thinking enough. I'm not strong enough. I'm not whatever enough to deal with this when it happens. So now I'm going to worry about all the bad things that will be.

the result of me not being enough to confront whatever this problem is. And so the question is, well, where do those beliefs come from that you're not going to be enough when, mean, most of us who reached the ripe old age of 48, we can look back on a life of I had all these challenges and somehow when I needed to step up, I step up and I got it done. Yet our anxiety tells us to well, ignore all that evidence and focus on the story instead. And so anyway, that's where I would say.

the heavy lifting that you do in therapy or in a recovery group or in a coaching session. That's where you're going to be able to address the fundamental stories and ideas that are telling you. You need to be anxious because you don't have the tools that you need to deal with the really tough stuff when it happens. And you know, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Go ahead and develop your meditation practice and your deep breathing exercises and that stuff as well. But you know,

If you've got a deep-seated anxiety that you're a little boy who isn't up for the challenges that you're going to face, then learning three different methods of breath work is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. You're just...

Dan (09:06)
equipped to handle it in the moment. It's not, and I agree with you, it's definitely not going to solve what's causing the problem, but it'll kind of get you through it until, you know, like you said, it'll range to rearrange deck chairs until help comes, right? Until, you know, it's a form of a men's group or a therapy comes with a helicopter to rescue you from the Titanic. But, um, I think it is good value. It is, it is stuff that I think is valuable to do because it also shows a quick result for people.

You know, we all want shortcuts, right? And so if I can, even if I'm going through the same argument with my partner, but I'm not as upset about it to me because I did some breath work where I pushed myself at the gym and I don't feel as worked up about it. I might be able to think a little bit more clearly in the moment. I might be able to make a slightly better decision.

And maybe I can figure out that, I can tie that back into the physical work that I did. And I get a little bit of an immediate benefit out of that. Now, what I'd be curious to find out is if, if you do enough of that, you know, are we going to fall into the trap of, well, I don't need to do anything else. I don't need to dig deeper. I don't need to go to a men's group or therapy or whatever. And I mean, I'm, I've been guilty of that myself for sure. Yeah. Well, this is good enough, right? I've got the bandaid on. I can get by. I'm kind of limping by here, right?

Charles (10:28)
Yeah, and I guess that really depends on what your experience is. Maybe you can get so good at some of these techniques that you're not being activated to the level.

Dan (10:41)
know, rock bottom, so to speak.

Charles (10:43)
Yeah, and you're now, you know, the fights you have with your girlfriend, the odds that this is going to be the final big blow up that we break up over, maybe that goes down enough that you, you know, feel more comfortable that you can handle stuff. But then it comes down to, but then what's, what's your inner dialogue still going to be like? Are you still going to have these doubts and these questions, know, again, I feel like your ability to mitigate the effect that some of those stories that you tell yourself about yourself.

You can't, you can't fix those by just soothing yourself in the moment. Eventually you've got to kind of open up the hood and get in there, you know, where I mean, going with the car metaphor, it's like, you know, yeah, putting, dumping a bottle of fuel treatment into your gas tank when you fill up is going to fix some of the short-term problems that you're having. But you know, if you got a crappy engine at some point, you're going to have to either open the hood or pay somebody to open the hood for you and get in there.

and get it fixed because the little bottle of STP or whatever is only going to go so far when you got a big problem that you need to address. so I would like to just make sure that people looking at this book when it comes to, you know, your meditation, your deep breathing, your...

for of these things to, you know, we talk about it, men in western cultures used to be boys at western cultures and boys at western cultures are not getting what they need most of the time from mommy and daddy. So.

Dan (12:20)
For people who haven't listened to the book or read the book, can you explain the provocation?

Charles (12:24)
Yeah,

yeah, I'm gonna hit him. was, ⁓ ineptations, so... Yeah, so...

Dan (12:28)
a different ones. A

lot of them I had never heard of before, by the way.

Charles (12:32)
The

one first we'll start, we'll start with the most basic meditation that most people are familiar with, which is mindfulness meditation, where the goal is you focus on one thing. Usually that's your breathing, the sound and the feeling of just your breath. And then when you notice yourself getting distracted from focusing on your breathing, you notice the thought that has popped into your head and you don't ruminate on it. You just notice it like, I just thought about.

My grocery list and what's on there, what I might forget, but now I'm going to go back to my breath. You know, you know, you don't indulge in the thought of your grocery list and you don't punish yourself or be distracted by your grocery list. You just notice that your grocery list popped into your head and then you go back to the breathing and you try to practice and get better and better at switching your attention back to what you want it to be on. And then that builds the muscle of being able to say, okay, I am somebody that.

just because a thought pops into my head doesn't mean I have to jump down the rabbit hole with whatever that thought is. can notice it and I can go back and do my whatever I want to be focused on. that form of meditation, there is ample peer-reviewed evidence for the fact that, okay, that can reduce, that kind of practice will reduce physiological stress in your life if you...

focus on it, you do it, you repeat it, you get good at it and you make it a part of your life. Your cortisol levels will go down. Your, ⁓ I believe your, least your heart rate and possibly your blood pressure as well will go down. there's art. can't argue with the benefits of mindfulness meditation. It is, it's rock solid where some of the other methods that he talks about would probably have some benefits, but we can't say with the same level of certainty that they do. Yeah.

Provocation meditation is where you try to get yourself upset while you meditate by thinking about situations and scenarios that would often bring on anxiety. then you focus on interacting with that anxiety and bringing yourself back down. And the idea is if you can do this, if you can practice doing this when the anxiety is not real,

then you'll be able to have a better shot of doing it when the anxiety is real. I'm not sure if I buy into that. think there are reasons to believe that that's not true. The example I brought up to you was, you know, no matter how good you are at Call of Duty, that doesn't mean it's time to strap on a rucksack and grab an AR and go to the middle of a war. At some level, you're going to know that it's not real. And so your ability to get upset and triggered by it, it's not gonna be the same.

I mean, just like, you know, when you're, when you're at a gym practicing Krav Maga or, you know, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, your, your physiological response to that isn't going to be exactly the same as you're walking down a dark alley and some guy hit you in the back of the head with a brick. Right. Like you're, you're going to know the difference between, I mean, even, even the more primitive parts of your brain are still, you're going to get activated, but you're also going to know, okay, I'm not in.

real danger here, like I would be if I was being attacked by a stranger unexpectedly. So I'm open to the idea and when we get into all this stuff, let me just say some of this stuff feels like bullshit to me. I reserve the right, know, six months or a year from now, I may be basing my whole stress management paradigm on one of these ideas. But right now, most of it feels a bit bullshitty. Performative.

Yes, exactly. Again, but I might not feel that I might get more information where I don't feel that way anymore. But for right now, when reading this chapter for the first time today, a lot of this stuff was like, my God, are you kidding me? What are you talking about? And so, yeah, that's, that's where a lot of this felt like not in the provocation meditation was the first one where I was like, I don't know about this. The next one he got into was some of the different breath practices. Jai breath.

I got meh. I listened to the audiobook and I remember hearing a strange word but it's UJJAYI. involves breathing through the nose with your mouth closed but slightly constricting the back of the throat so you create an audible sound similar to what you do when you whisper. It has a long list of known benefits on the heart, brain, digestion, nervous system and immune system that you can research. Well, I did. And the list wasn't quite as long as he made it out. I mean...

Dan (17:12)
Okay.

Charles (17:14)
People who have chosen to do it report that yes, it's all self-reported. And so I have very little trust for any study where did you actually do it? It's completely self-reported and how did it, you know, what are the benefits? Exactly. yeah. I, when, when somebody, when a study happens where people have to go live somewhere.

Dan (17:21)
Yeah, that's right.

And what else are you doing?

Charles (17:43)
and have to be recorded and observed doing the thing that is being studied. So you know that they actually do it. And then their vital signs and other things are being tested as a result of it and compared with a control group. Then I'm willing to accept the evidence. But when it's all fill out a card that says whether you did this breathing or you didn't do this breathing and you felt better or worse after doing the breathing, it's like, okay, this is people are getting a little bit of money.

And the temptation to tell people what they want to hear is very high. so, ⁓ I did not find any real studies, what I would consider real studies about this kind of breathing and these benefits that he's talking about. And then that got me going down the road. I was like, okay, well, what's this guy's background? he, is he a scientist? kind of education does he have? And nowhere on the internet does he address his education. He just refers to himself as a Silicon Valley sales and marketing expert.

Dan (18:41)
Okay, all right.

Charles (18:42)
So, which, hey listen, I mean, if I were trying to sell a book, I would say something similar about myself because I don't have any credentials. you know, this, ⁓ I kinda get the feeling from this book that like us, this guy is essentially a curator. He hears other stuff from other people that he thinks sounds good and wants to pass it along to people. There's nothing inherently wrong or unethical about that. But when it comes to me deciding to integrate any new practices into my life,

That's not good enough for me. got it. ⁓ okay. So let's see the next breath exercise. He calls lung expander, which is you take in a big breath and you hold it. And then you try to breathe in a couple more breaths on top of that. And you're really just screening how much your abdomen can contain. And then you hold it for a few seconds and release it. And then he throws in the wrinkle of also squeezing your perineum during the five second hold. ⁓

Dan (19:13)
No, I get it.

Charles (19:42)
because it will bring sensation and wake up your general region.

Dan (19:46)
And that's the muscle that stops you from peeing. that correct? Correct. would for yeah, basically when you squeeze that it would be like, hold on.

Charles (19:54)
Yeah. Or if you need to pinch off the end of a loaf. Okay. Same. yeah. Okay. Same. I'll do it now. So, ⁓ no, that's good. Yeah. Then there's another thing he calls the breath of fire that, is a Kundalini tradition. went to one Kundalini yoga session once. Okay. And, ⁓ it's basically a ritualized and programmed version of hyperventilating to the point where you almost pass out. ⁓ okay.

Yeah. It's, ⁓ and you do that while you're doing yoga and yeah, I've heard Rogan talk about it back in the day when I used to listen to his podcast where, ⁓ some people can induce hallucinogenic states similar to like mushrooms or LSD just by managing their breath in such a way where you're essentially, you're, taking control of the amount of blood oxygen that's getting to your brain. And as a result, you're causing your brain to see some things that might not be there.

Dan (20:52)
And what was your experience when you did the Kundalini Yoga?

Charles (20:52)
for some.

I didn't get much out. was, it was too much, too much work for not enough gain. I, I like some of the more gentle flowy kind of yoga's. I can get something out of those, anything that it, I mean, hot yoga, power yoga, Kundalini yoga. I've tried all three of those. ⁓ no, listen, animal yoga is obviously the top of the food chain. Any animal that you can go with, that's the best yoga. And then everything else is a level below that. ⁓

But yeah, the hard yoga's, I can't see myself sticking with it long enough to get good at it. And again, that's something I might change my mind on at some point down the road, but for right now, hot yoga, power yoga, and kugelini yoga, we're just all no thanks. Not for me. All right. So getting back to, yeah, the next breath exercise is the Wim Hof method.

I tried to read his book and I just couldn't do it, man. It was just too much. ⁓ It's like, please let me be your guru was what I was getting from the book. Cold plunge. He's a cold plunge. Yeah. And I downloaded his free app and did like the, ⁓ the cold, cold finish or cold shower thing. Okay. He's got a, his, his app, you can do like a free two or three week cold shower plan on before you have to pay for the app.

Dan (21:56)
Yeah. He's also a

Isn't that, wasn't he also like a big

Charles (22:22)
And it was okay. mean, I really all, all of these, well, not all of these, but a lot of the things in this chapter are about subjecting yourself to voluntary hardship and then sticking with stuff, even when it becomes uncomfortable. And I believe you should definitely do that. I think you should lift weights in the gym that are past what you've lifted before. I think you should.

go for long hikes that are longer than you're sure you can complete. And sure, I think you can hold your breath for a little longer than you think you can hold your breath. I think there's benefits in all of those things. Yeah. ⁓ I think all of those can build resilience for you and more resilient people typically handle it better when they get in a stressful situation. So I'm down with that. But with some of these, it's, it does, it does kind of get into the woo woo performative. mean...

I just made up one with Chad GPT about changing the way you urinate and instead of just,

Dan (23:23)
Yeah, when you're releasing that book, need step-by-step ⁓

Charles (23:26)
Instead of just taking your penis out and just letting it out, it's like, no, you, you'll become more resilient. If you pee for a couple seconds, then stop and do five pulses of pee and then pee for a couple more seconds and just repeat that to your blood. And that will, that will somehow translate to a better relationship with your wife. I don't know. ⁓

Dan (23:47)
to

look up because I've heard that actually it's supposed to be good for for erections as well by practicing that. So it's strengthening that muscle, you know, but every time I read that protocol, like any protocols, it was like a lot of work. wasn't like, do it a couple of times. It was like, you needed to like invest some time and dedication into doing it.

Charles (24:07)
I mean,

it's essentially the Kegel protocol for women that want to strengthen their pelvic floor. Exactly. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. The benefit on their side is, you know, anything inside their vagina they can grab tighter. Yeah. And the benefit, one of the benefits for guys is if you don't want to ejaculate and your muscles down there are strong enough, you can stop yourself from ejaculating. I'm just, I'm not doing it, but, ⁓ you know, if that's...

Dan (24:36)
I guess me if I had that problem, you know, my Y might be strong enough to invest some time and energy into doing it.

Charles (24:42)
If ⁓ yeah, if, if things weren't operating on the dapper timetable and you wanted to do something to change it, yeah, this would be one of the weapons you had. I'm not going to become a Manusphere influencer based on telling guys they need to pee different. But I, the thing is I very easily could by just uploading the PDF of this book to Chad GPT and say, Hey, make up some fake urinary protocol.

Dan (24:52)
Only releasing this book. Come on.

Charles (25:10)
This sounds like something this guy would say it spit it out immediately this sounded exactly like most of the stuff in this chat Okay. All right. And yeah, so that's that's all

Dan (25:19)
So

is Dr. Levin any better for you? Desire.

Charles (25:23)
Okay, yeah, were some big things from the Desire chapter that I liked. Hold on, me... Man, I forgot how long 10 is.

Dan (25:30)
And it's like learning about our own desire.

Charles (25:33)
Yeah. So here are the, there's some pretty quick and easy rules that I think we can glean from this chapter that will make your relationship better. Have your own views, opinions, preferences, needs, and boundaries and never pretend like you don't have them and think that that's going to make your relationship better. And the other, the other really thing that came to me is, know, when we talk about, when we, when guys with podcasts or books talk about masculine leadership, if you're in a relationship with a woman that respects and loves you,

The beginning and the ending of most masculine leadership is you just honestly saying what you want to do or what your opinion is. And if she loves and respects you in a lot of cases, unless she has a compelling reason not to, she'll just go along with it. And that's what she wants to do. When she says, what do you want for dinner tonight? What she doesn't want is for you to say, I don't care. What do you want? ⁓ I heard one person say the best way to answer that question, male or female is to say,

You know, I'm feeling like 65 % Shake Shack burger, maybe 35 % Thai food. How does that sound to you? And then they can very easily say, uh, option A sounds amazing or I rather do option B or now that you mentioned option C would be what would hit the spot for me. But the worst possible thing is I don't care. do you want? I feel like really just stating your opinion obviously is often.

all it takes to exemplify masculine leadership. ⁓

Dan (27:06)
point that resonated with me with this chapter was you're 100 % right is it's difficult for us to get to that point because of things in our past, the things that we've dealt with as kids in our past relationships where our needs were squelched or we were, you know, I think the example he gave is, know, if you're just simply like, if you were like reading a book or, you know, playing a video game, whatever under the covers past your bedtime, your parents came in and told you to turn the lights off and

Charles (27:09)
that.

Dan (27:35)
and go to bed or, you know, stop reading it. You know, that sent the message that our needs and our wants and desires come secondary and they're not important and they potentially could get, make somebody angry, especially if your parents come in and they're angry that you're up, you know? And, you know, we carry that with us. Then we might start to think that's the way it is. And then we start approaching situations where if we are going to express what our needs are, we're going to make somebody angry or that they're not going to respect us or

We might already be in a relationship where we feel like we're not being respected by our partner. Right. And so now it's like, we don't want to do anything to rock the boat. We want to please them. So I'm going to even express my, my wants and desires to even, even less because I'd, want you to be as happy as possible. So it doesn't even matter what I want. Ironically, what you said though, is the way to get that respect back is to actually be completely honest and transparent and don't make it a guessing game for them. And.

You're building trust by putting yourself out there by saying, this is who I am. I like Shake Shack. I don't like Taco Bell or whatever it is. Right. And not be afraid of the consequences of potentially upsetting somebody who might really like Taco Bell. Like, and it seems so simple, but a lot of, mean, you know, thinking back for myself, absolutely. There were times where I felt like my needs shouldn't be important because it caused inconvenience for other people. Like being a type one diabetic, it was just like.

I'd have to go off and, you know, get special treatment. Like I'd have to like leave a classroom sometimes for like a low blood sugar or whatever. Now I have to interrupt the class that's being quiet right now, like in the middle of an exam and they need to make an express or exception for me. And it's just like, well, why do you get, you know, and so all of these things kind of build up. So for me, I mean, that's not the only reason I am the way I am, but it was one of them. I, you know, recognizing that it just, it doesn't do me any favors to not express what I want, but also.

You don't have the practice like I didn't have the practice in terms of figuring out what I want or even even knowing that I should be spending the time thinking about what my desires are like that that's valuable time that I should be spending on things versus you're being selfish, right? Like you're selfish thinking about what you want, right? You shouldn't be you. Why are you wasting your time thinking about what you want? You should be serving other people or whatever. And it's like after so many years, you realize by knowing what you want, not being afraid to say it.

you can serve other people better at that point, right?

Charles (30:02)
Yeah, another tool that I would say to to lean on here is. What would you eat for dinner tonight if you didn't have a wife?

Dan (30:09)
I

love the way you said that, right? If you were going to, or you're going to program a robot to do that, we're going to to saying this chat GPT, right? What would you say? Because you, there's no judgment there. You're not afraid of any judgment. That's a great way to get that.

Charles (30:21)
all

you had to do was just come up with a decision that, you know, there was nobody else who had to agree to it or had to weigh in on it. When, and that would be, I mean, every example that he brought up, like, we've got a, you know, our son is struggling with his math homework and we, you know, the wife comes up with ideas of, should we hire a tutor? Should we send him to a different school? Should we be like, okay, well, she's asking you that question. Pretend like she's not a resource. Pretend like she doesn't exist. Pretend it's just you and the kid.

And it's your job to fix the problem. What would your suggestion be? Not like this is what we're going to do. Like what's an idea you would throw out to yourself if you were the only one responsible for solving the problem of where are we going to eat? How are we going to invest our savings? Where are we going to live? How are we going to help our kid with their homework? mean, whatever it is, what color drapes are we going to put on the wall? What color dress would you like her to wear to the holiday party? mean, whatever the question is, when she comes to you.

asking for your feedback, answer it as if she's not going to have an opinion and her opinion doesn't matter. Don't treat her like her opinion doesn't matter, but answer the question as if her opinion doesn't matter because that is the truest version of your own presence and your desire. You're not worried about what her opinion is, and you don't need to be. I mean, you should need to be.

Dan (31:41)
If you present it in the right way, remember that you, by adding your opinion, you are offering another option, which is usually helpful for people, giving them more information, more choices to decide from.

Charles (31:53)
Yeah, because I mean, in a healthy relationship, I mean, even a friendship, if we, I mean, it's 6.30, I'm probably not going to eat dinner tonight, but if I did, and we were going to go get dinner together, and you were like, Charles, what do you feel like? There's no answer to Charles, what do you feel like that I have to worry that I have to hide from you because I don't want to deal with how you might react to it. Yeah. And I wouldn't find myself in a relationship with a woman. Now, I might tell myself a story that she might have a bad reaction, but... Mm-hmm.

In reality, I'm not going to be with somebody where I have to walk on eggshells answering the question, what do you feel like for dinner? And honestly, I think the percentage of people in this world that legitimately have a negative reaction to what do you feel like for dinner? Cause the people that would react poorly to that probably aren't asking in the first place. And you know, I could really, I could really go for Chinese tonight. Well, I don't want Chinese tonight. Okay. That's fine. I'm you asked me what I, what I felt like. That's what I feel like.

Dan (32:49)
Yeah. You know, he talks about, you know, practicing this because if, if we're not used to actually having to come up with answers and decisions with stuff, and we kind of always, you know, relent to whoever's around, it's a muscle that needs to be strengthened. It's, and it takes a lot of effort and energy to then process that stuff and, and the thoughts and come up with something. And for some people who, know, when you do it all the time, yeah, it's easy. this is what I want. Yeah. But if you're not used to doing that, like it...

It sounds lame, but it does take some work and energy and us being humans trying to always conserve energy. We're not going to want to put that effort in. It's a lot easier to go, I don't know. do you want? So that's also not really masculine because you're not putting any effort. You're not showing that you care about the way.

Charles (33:35)
I have reason that some people do that and he went down a list of, maybe, you know, maybe you've gotten too much negative feedback when you do offer an opinion. Maybe you're lazy, maybe you're too busy. And when he was doing the too busy, when I like bullshit. Yeah, you're not.

Dan (33:50)
Right. Is that about himself?

Charles (33:52)
Yeah,

he was like, I was so busy working and helping out with the kids that I couldn't offer an opinion on what to have for dinner. That's a bunch of bullshit.

Dan (34:02)
So can't schedule you in for my opinions right now. I've got a meeting.

Charles (34:05)
It's

lazy. You're too lazy. mean, yeah. Whenever people give you the excuse of, I was too busy. It's like, I feel like if I was, if I was on your shoulder all day and I was auditing your schedule, I think we could probably squeeze in time for you to have an opinion on what color drapes your wife wants to put. Exactly. And yeah, I, I, yeah, that drives me crazy. It's like, most of the time it's either you're afraid of what your opinion, how it could be reacted to.

Dan (34:21)
That's way of saying I didn't feel like it.

Charles (34:34)
which is legitimate, or you're just lazy and you don't think it's worth your, even a little bit of effort. And that's legitimate too. I mean, that's, that's a real reason that you could be not doing this, but knock it off. mean, one of the, one of my favorite phrases that I've heard is, I don't know if it was Simon Sinek or Adam Grant or somebody like that was the idea of having or holding or having strong opinions loosely held where you should have

a pretty strong, there's no other reason to not have a strong opinion about just about everything. Don't just grab onto that opinion and never let it go. Just like have an opinion. Like there are certain things I think about politics and society and religion and philosophy that I'm pretty passionate about them, but I could be talked out of them too, if I was given good enough evidence. And I feel like that's the way that you should be when, even when it comes down to what should we eat for dinner tonight?

It's like, okay, well, if you, again, if you were alone, if you lived by yourself, your indecision over what to have for dinner wouldn't stop you from eating. You'd come up with something. Just come up with it for your girlfriend or your wife. And then that could be the start of the conversation. And sometimes, I mean, he rightly said, even not much of an answer is still an answer. can, like, you could very easily say, well...

They catered Italian at work today, so that's what we have for lunch. So anything but Italian would be fine. Yeah. Like that's still better than I don't care what you want.

Dan (36:06)
Cause you're putting some thought into it. You're showing a little bit of effort. Yeah. That you're there with the person you care about the situation. I think that's really what it comes down to. People just want somebody who's going to care in any, any situation.

Charles (36:19)
Because, you know, and I don't care, do whatever you want to do, whether it's the food or the dress or the drapes or the kids' education. What that's really communicating is I'm checking out. You know what? Handle this yourself. I'm not, I'm not into this. I haven't thought about it. I'm not going to think about it. Just do what you want to do. And yeah, you'll, you'll get an appropriate reaction based on that, which is going to be like, okay, this, this is a guy who just...

doesn't care and nobody gets excited being around people who don't care. True. True.

Dan (36:52)
Well, the thing that I got out of it was something that bothers you, which is the whole, they have the concept of the selfishness. That's right. ⁓ and, and I appreciated it actually, because I am one of these, I came from, ⁓ or come from background where, you know, thinking about things for yourself, I have this underlying tone of, of thinking that it's, it's selfish, right? And, you know, I'll, I'll let you get into your side of it, but because of

the way he phrased it, it did stick with me and it did resonate with me that, you know, wanting something and expressing your needs for something is not being selfish. And it kind of gave me permission in my own mind to get more into that and to really realize, hey, I'm going to spend some time thinking about what I want and not worry about the consequences for it. That was my take.

Charles (37:41)
Okay,

so let's go and let's rely on the text of the book so that people can understand why this set me off so much. So just going to read a couple of sentences from it. He says, your quest to tap into your desire requires you to develop an unexpected quality, selfishness. The word has a negative connotation, but what if selfishness were a virtue?

What if we viewed it simply as a commitment to satisfy your own needs first so that we were in a better position to take care of others? The definition of selfishness is not a commitment to satisfy your own needs first so that you're in a better position to help others. Okay. Selfishness already has a definition. Let's look it up. Okay. Well, selfishness is a word with a suffix. So the root word of selfishness is selfish. So let's define selfish.

A concern for one's own welfare or advantage at the expense or in disregard of others. Okay. Excessive interest in oneself. So in order to peddle ideas or books, G as Youngblood doesn't get to say that selfishness is the commitment to satisfy your own needs so that you're in a better position to satisfy other people's needs. Dictionary.com already came up with a definition for selfish. And as I said to you.

I have a suspicion that old GS would probably be among the many people who had this attitude of today's society. just, give words, brand new meanings whenever we want to. And that's not how language works. think he'd be the kind of guy to say something like that. Yeah. But then when it comes to moving some merch or moving some books, let's just redefine the word selfish and we can make it mean whatever we want it to mean. Fair. To which I say bullshit. Okay. The discussion here should be, don't be selfish.

Selfishness is wrong, but what you may have learned as a child with selfishness isn't actually selfishness. So let's, let's clean up those definitions. So, you know exactly what it does mean and what it doesn't mean. And the idea of meeting your own needs first so that you can meet the needs of the other people you care about. That's not selfishness. That is self-respect. That is agency. That is setting boundaries. That is being aware of your desires. There's a lot of things that it is.

And there's one thing that it isn't which is selfish. I...

Dan (40:07)
I heard the term self

full. that actually in the dictionary? Just.

Charles (40:12)
Yeah,

I've not I don't think I've heard that so full. He has been made up. Yeah.

Dan (40:15)
It was only a podcast. Yeah.

Yeah. And it was, it was, it was on a podcast and it was just wondering if it made it into the dictionary. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's exactly what, how she defined it was you're basically doing things for yourself so you can help other people.

Charles (40:21)
It's not yet made its way

I like that idea. just think that we, we don't get to. Yeah. I mean, he could be like, I've come up with this new concept and the word is abracadabra. And the word abracadabra means a commitment to satisfying your own needs so that you're in a better position to satisfy the needs of people you care about. Like, okay, but don't we already associate abracadabra with the little thing magicians say before they make the rabbit appear in the hat? It's like.

Dan (40:40)
Redefine something.

Charles (41:04)
Yeah, just, just cause someone was willing to publish your book doesn't mean you get to willy nilly redefine words. And again, I strongly suspect that in other areas of our language, he wouldn't be okay with people doing that. Right. But here we are. Here we are. And I think part of that, you and I talked about before we recorded, part of it is also if I can sell this book to these guys and they can, and they're willing to buy into me, repurposing existing words.

then we'll have this little secret that we share together so we'll be in a club and so when I get to the point at the end of chapter 10 when I keep hawking my goddamn book about the art of embodiment for men maybe they'll be a little bit more likely to shell out some extra cash because we're already in this little club where we use words in different ways than the rest of the world does so anyway I am I am always on the lookout for how is somebody trying to trick me into something and

Dan (41:52)
Yeah?

Charles (42:00)
I don't know if he's doing it on purpose or he thinks he's being effective and I don't really much care. But I'm not going to let it happen. And I'm not going to pass it along to our listeners. right. That's it. We'll talk to you next week about chapters. Bye. Thank you for listening to this complete episode of the Mindflay Masculine Podcast. We appreciate you joining us as we work through these challenging topics and hope you found our look into embodiment and desire valuable.

Dan (42:13)
12 and 13 sounds good bye bye

Charles (42:26)
If you know someone who's struggling with relationship dynamics or trying to navigate these same concepts, please share this episode with them. It's the best way to help others who might benefit from hearing the conversation. Again, for all of our content, including audio and video episodes, visit mindfullymasculine.com. Thanks, and we'll talk to you next time.